I moved apartments, jobs, and cities! In the wake of this new start, it seems only fitting that I would also move blog hosts.

www.gracebot.tumblr.com

See you on the other side!

• The Septemer Issue – I secretly love a Head Bitch in Charge (HBIC), especially one that is as mysterious, passionate and intimidating as Anna Wintour.
• Fantastic Mr. Fox – What a visually stunning movie.
• Hook - When is the last time you watched this movie? You will love it just as much as you did before, trust!

Netflix Queue

• The Powder and the Glory: The story of how Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein built their empire back in the day. See what I mean about those HBICs?
• The Men Who Stare at Goats: Heard this was hee-larious.
• Up in the Air: I’ve been dying to watch this movie but am too cheap to pay for this in theaters.

TV

I’ve been really obsessed with television lately. I usually one have an hour or so to dedicate to my “shows” these days so thank goodness for DVR.  Although t’s almost shameful to admit how many vices (in the form of television shows) I have these days.

30 Rock, Big Bang Theory,  Community, Dexter,  Glee, Gossip Girl, Modern Family, Parks and Recreation, The Good Wife, The Office, Top Chef, Top Chef: Masters

1. Cocktail: Grapefruit Sake Spritzer

2. Salad: Seared Blue Fin Sashimi Salad

3. Soup: Tom Ka Kai – Thai Chicken Coconut Soup
 4. Appetizer: Asian Pair with Smoked Gruyere Grilled Cheese Sandwich

5. Main Course: Sesame Encrusted Seared Scallops in a Ponzu Vinaigrette

6. Main Course: Tenderloin Filet with a Ginger Soy Marinade

September 2008:

Cheers to New York and its many food carts!

Meeting good people can really make your day. Good interesting conversations make me forget that I’m even working because I’m enjoying it so much.

An Example of Good People

• I met a fellow Financial Advisor who was over twice my age, but was starting at the same time as me. It turns out that he had already sort of done all this . He had already spent fifteen years at the firm and was even a former lecturer at the same training we met as trainees at. This man had risen through the ranks of management  only to be knocked off his pedestal during the merger and forced to either start over or be forced into early retirement. To see someone so humbly start over and do so gratefully reminds me how lucky I am. Despite any career pains I may experience, I am fortunate to have an opportunity to be something great when far more cunning people out there are unemployed.

An Example of Not So Good People

• I came across a 78 year old man who was the victim of a Ponzi scheme. He told me that he had survived both the Vietnam War and the Korean War only to lose it all at the end. He had trusted his Financial Advisor with his life savings and one day, when his roof was in need of repair, he called to cash some out. The Advisor never returned any of his calls and when he realized what was happening he broke down and sobbed at the humiliation.

  People like this make me really angry because they give my whole industry a bad name.  Because not all of us are here to cheat the public and that many of us believe we are actually helping our clients to the best of our ability.

Cheers to Having My Own Studio (because after a long day, it’s nice to not be around people)

I want to spend this year working hard while im at work, but more importantly, I want to focus on that life outside of work. I learned in 2009 that while a true work/life balance may not be totally possible right now, given the demands of my career, I can enjoy the time that I do have.

 I’m a simple girl with very simple needs these days. What more can I ask for than good food, good people and good conversation?

Friday 01/01: You know it’s going to be a good year when you wake up on the 1st to this face snuggled up next to you under the covers! Pictured above: Porkchop 

Saturday 01/02: Mr. Y and I started off the new year right with some local biking and good home cooking. Pictured above: pan cooked tilapia with a white wine lemon butter sauce, asparagus and rice.

Sunday 01/03: Starting “Cheap Thrills” again, we headed out to the LACMA and took advantage of Bank of America’s Museum Program so admission was free! Pictured above: “self portrait”, artist forgotten (oops). Not Pictured: The giant filthy delicious pastrami sandwiches that we devoured at Jonnie’s Pastrami Restaurant after the museum.

Monday 01/04: I found this film on the Sundance Channel and instantly felt guilty for not utilizing my Netflix more. This is a film from Hong Kong about a crazy detective that is definitely worth watching.

CHEERS TO TWENTY TEN.

Waving Goodbye to 20090 "Dovima with Elephants" by Richard Avedon

You know, ordinarily I am not a big fan of year end recaps, but I am so self indulgent these days that I think I’ll indulge in one anyway.

2009 was fucking ridiculous. If I could summarize this past year in a cute little title, it would be “The Year of the New Beginnings and Big Things Poppin’”. Let me give you a breakdown.

Work:

I started 2009 off as a member of a team that was led by one wildly successful Financial Advisor at one of the biggest wealth management firms in the nation. As many of you know, this was not a good year to be in Financial Services and with the industry appearing to have lost its mind and sense of rationality, I was caught in a whirlwind. The team and I parted ways soon after. What proceeded goes as follows: I had a job, lost the job, left the company, got an offer to rejoin the company at a different location, got a promotion, and landed the amazing opportunity to be where I am now.

In 2010, I’m looking to grow my business and determined to survive and succeed in this challenging environment. There are a myriad of obstacles that stand in my way- new firm policies, shaky consumer confidence, tough competition, etc- and to be honest, I get butterflies in my stomach when I think of all there is to overcome. However, considering the fact that I felt hopeless many times this past year and made it through the fire alive each time, I’ve learned that I’m more capable than I think. Thus, I’m heading into this new year both anxious and excited by all the new things to come this way. When it comes to my career, 2010 will be entitled “The Year of Survival and Success”.

Life:

I started this blog this past year as an attempt to document my desire to achieve as close as I could get to a true work/life balance. As you can see by the lack of updates, I haven’t been so great about attending to that balance these days. Going forward, I have a lot of things to work on. I’d like to read more, cook more, exercise more, do more in general. Nonetheless, it was a wonderful year for memories. 

Some highlights include:

• I ate a LOT of good food.
• Acheiving my financial savings goal
• Completing my first and second 5k runs
• Moved from a 1 bedroom to a gorgeous studio apartment
• Seeing Mayer Hawthorne live in concert and finally meeting him
• Spending the summer on the beach bike riding and body boarding.
• Serving on the Board of Directors for a wonderful non-profit organization
• Getting more involved with cooking as a hobby. Becoming the dessert girl at our friends’ dinner parties.
• I did my fair share of domestic travelling and went to the Bay Area, Napa Valley, Las Vegas, New York , New Jersey, and Detroit.

Balance

The last few months, balance has gone out the window and moving forward I’m going my best to acheive it. Eek.

To be continued in 2010….

 Cheers to a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Where have I been?

Well, for month of November I’ was out of the state and I didn’t stop spinning spinning spinning until recently.

First, I was in New Jersey for business, where I had the pleasure of meeting my colleagues from all over the country. It was both humbling and inspiring to see that some of these incredibly smart individuals are considered my equals. Every day I was there, I focused on trying to absorb all the information I could and avoid food coma. Every night, I bonded with my fellow Financial Advisors at the hotel bar over great conversations and gin and tonic.

Then, I was in New York where Erika and I ate too much good food and drank too much booze and five days went by like a blur. I can recall eating the most delicious pork buns at Momofuku Noodle Bar, going to a speakeasy themed bar where the cocktails were served in teacups, and watching a rock band performing in Chinatown.  Besides reuniting with some good friends, New York just wasn’t the same anymore. I’ve been there back quite a few times now, but it was my first time in New York for a purpose besides vacation and having a non-tourist experience …well let’s just say it made me glad I work in California.

And then after what seemed like months, Mr. Y and I reunited in Detroit to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. At that point, I was sick of airplanes, cabs, living out of a suitcase and mostly exhausted. But Detroit was by far my favorite leg of my East coast mini-tour. In the media, it seems like the word Detroit is synonymous with depressing and indeed, driving through all those empty streets, I wondered if it was doomed to be a future ghost town. But then,  I got to see a part of the city that seemed to want to just tune out all the noise and focus on having a good time.  By day, it was all boutique shopping in midtown Detroit, Richard Avedon at the Detroit Institute of Art, dim sum, and getting pampered. By night, it was all midwest hippies and a Greatful Dead cover band, motorcity techno at a downtown loft party,  Yugoslavian brandy, the border of 8 miles and bars with indoor smoking.

Also, sometime throughout this whirlwind I had a birthday.  I found myself literally at the top of Detroit dining with the love of my life at Coach Insignia.

Now I’m back here in wonderful California, sort of detoxing and adjusting to a new schedule. The three weeks since I’ve been back have been filled with potlucks, long meetings, long nights, more overeating, and the frenzy otherwise known as the holiday season.

No promises, but I’m going to try and be better about this whole blogging thing… see you all on the flipside!

Cheers to everything being as it should be.

This poem, although pretty cheesy and a bit embarrassing, was a big mash up of all the emotions I was feeling at that time.  It is simultaneously a celebration of recklessness and expression of the trepidation over what was to come.  Although life was certainly complicated in its own way back then, my 17 year old self seemed to be very aware that the end of high school also signified the end of being a real kid.

The funny thing is, in reading this poem, I feel many of the sentiments in it still ring true today.  I can barely remember what it was like to be 17 anymore – it was a time before 401ks and W-2s, bachelor degrees and bills- and I’ve definitely changed a lot since then.  Yet, here I am at 22, and still  feeling as if I am “spinning out of this curve we call adolescence”. 

Anyway, as I am gleefully treading in the present and cautiously focused on the future, I though that I’d revisit the past and  insert a bit of myself here.

Cheers to those individuals that inspired this back then.

“English Class- Poem”, 2004

you and i
we fell in like
for the first time
on the concrete bridge
atop the worn pavement

we started out like the movies.

cruising along at two a.m.
through the sleeping suburban streets
like half rebels
with ice cream resting on our lips
singing our souls out.

you and i
we laughed fallen on the tan bark
swinging into the sky on metal wings
screaming obnoxiously
like we had
purchased every minute and it belonged
to us
and only us.

the two of us
we drowned out our differences
in puppy eyed apologies
and make up dates where
your head sunk in my lap
on the greasy velvet brocade at
the newest romantic comedy.

our group
crammed into a small dive
on the downtown streets of San Mateo
bathed in pink neon lights
as two metal fans tried
to kiss our sweltering necks
and we were
longing for some cool relief .
and then it came
thick foiled pans of noodles
glasses of orange Thai tea
all soaking sensually in
early September heat

and we are
huddling around on sticky vinyl chairs
laughing and screaming
over every babbling detail
we are giggling to our
own language of inside jokes and immature memories

lounging lazily
in the baking sun
we are always laughing
at old crushes
old kisses
bad memories that were so bad
they became good

looking fondly over
glossy cheesy 8 by 12′s
sentiments scribbled on binder paper
it is with you girls
that teasing is breathing
and time is always frozen in our fun

and those were the times
that i scribbled entries
“dear diary
we are destined to live
our lives like a frosty fairy tale”.

making plans
seizing the moment
over salty stuffed burritos
from a dingy road side truck
and those were the days
of carelessness
when we were
watching the world
spin forever
and we would never get dizzy
because we were
essentially invincible.

and now,
we are slowly
spinning out of this curve
we call adolescence
sprinting over what they call
a milestone

you and i
we are standing at this road
and it is diverged
in ten million possible paths
so we are bound
to choose different ones.

we are floating through suburbia
car following car
the path forged by glowing cigarettes
passing around bottles of
beach glass liquor
so that we may
avoid the future.

but in moments of quiet solitude
i am slowly realizing
that you
are going to eventually
become shadows
and i really just don’t know what to do.

I haven’t been experimenting so much with my cooking these days, but the opportunity to do so came up at a  recent dinner party.  I only had two hours to prepare something for the dinner after work and so I decided to try something quick, easy, and seasonal.  I’m not really a huge fan of pumpkin, but these weren’t too overpowering I promise.

To make these, just buy some cake mix (in a box) and use those ingredients, but  substitute water for pumpkin puree. Add about half a teaspoon of pumpkin spice and whatever you want for topping(I used cream cheese frosting and candy corn here).

Cheers to Fall!